The two men met in the middle of the road, and put up their hands. They appeared well-matched in size and weight. The swagman said:
"You'll find me as good a man as ever you met in your life."
Nosey began the battle by striking out with his right and left, but his blows did not seem to reach home, or to have much effect.
The swagman dodged and parried, and soon put in a swinging blow on the left temple. Nosey fell to the ground, and the stranger resumed his walk as before, uttering his war cry:
"You'll find me as good a man as ever you met in your life."
There were no seconds, but the rules of chivalry were strictly observed; the stranger was a true gentleman, and did not use his boots.
In the second round Nosey showed more caution, but the result was the same, and it was brought about by another hard blow on the temple. The third round finished the fight. Nosey lay on the ground so long that Bill, the Butcher, went over to look at him, and then he threw up the sponge--metaphorically--as there was no sponge, nor any need of one.
The defeated Nosey staggered towards his hut, and his temper was afterwards so bad that Julia declined to stay with him any longer; she loosed the marriage bonds without recourse to law, and disappeared. Her husband went away westward, but he did not stay long. He returned to Nyalong and lived awhile alone in his hut there, but he was restless and dissatisfied. Everybody looked at him so curiously. Even the women and children stood still as he passed by them, and began whispering to one another, and he guessed well enough why they were looking at him and what they were saying--"That's Nosey the murderer; he killed Baldy and hid him away somewhere; his wife said he ought to be hanged, and she has run away and left him."
When the hungry hawk comes circling over the grove of crookedy gum in which two magpies are feeding their callow young, the bush is soon filled with cries of alarm. The plump quail hides himself in the depths of a thick tussock; the bronze-winged pigeon dives into the shelter of the nearest scrub, while all the noisiest scolds of the air gather round the intruder. Every magpie, minah, and wattle-bird within a mile joins in the clamour. They dart at the hawk as he flies from tree to tree. When he alights on a limb they give him no peace; they flap their wings in his face, and call him the worst of names. Even the Derwent Jackass, the hypocrite with the shining black coat and piercing whistle, joins in the public outcry, and his character is worse than that of the hawk himself, for he has been caught in the act of kidnapping and devouring the unfledged young of his nearest neighbour. The distracted hawk has at length to retreat dinnerless to the swampy margin of the river where the tallest tea-trees wave their feathery tops in the wind.
In like manner the human hawk was driven from the township. He descended in the scale of crime, stole a horse, and departed by night.